IN 2002, TORONTO NATIVE
KATRINA MERREM. was an accountant living in Turks and Caicos when she decided it was time for a change. Two years later, she and her husband Noah
Houghton opened a premium chocolate business in the Dallas area called NoKA (for Noah and Katrina). Their timing was impeccable—the luxury chocolates market has grown 10.5 percent annually for the past five years,
and reached $1.3 billion in sales in 2005, according to market research firm Packaged Facts. Recently, Katrina emerged from the kitchen long enough to talk to BeE WOMAN about surmounting the steep learning curve that stretches between accountant and chocolatier.
Have you always been food-focused?
Always. My parents weren’t in the food industry, but I think they both should’ve been. They just loved fine food. The meals we had at a young age…! People would think it was very strange to see young children eating roast duck, but that’s what they cooked.
You’ve traced the nexus of your transformation
from bean counter to trufflemaker to a moment
of clarity on a Swiss mountaintop. What exactly
happened during that moment?
It was a combination of things. I’d been working very long hours for a very long time, and it was one of the first times I’d taken a moment to stop and reflect. It was a gorgeous day, the sun was shining…. The air was so clean up there, and it was quiet, because there weren’t many people around…. And it was suddenly so clear to me that I wanted to pursue something else. I really didn’t know what it was going to be; I just knew I had to take some time and figure out what it was that I enjoyed in life.
How did you decide on chocolate and, more
specifically, on single–estate chocolate?
Once I stopped to think about it, I found that chocolate had always been a key interest, but I was dissatisfied with a lot of the usual ingredients and also with the typical experience of eating chocolate. Most of what’s out there now is more confection, candy—it’s too sweet for my liking. I don’t have a sweet tooth. I’m really not into flavoring and filling. I love intense flavors. That’s why I like tasting wine—it’s amazing how many different flavors there are in wines.
How did you learn the business of being a
chocolatier?
We did a lot of research on the internet, and we traveled to Europe to attend various trade shows. We asked people—other entrepreneurs in various other industries—for guidance. And in Europe we visited a variety of chocolatiers who were very welcoming and informative. I still keep in touch with them today, and if I ever need advice, they’re more than willing to assist. When we were working on our truffle recipe, for example, and having some issues, they helped me figure out what I needed to change to achieve
the type of texture I wanted.
Why choose Texas as a home base?
We did briefly move back to Canada, but it was the worst winter in about 40 years, and we found that your body does not adjust back to cold weather easily. We knew we wanted to start our own business but we didn’t know at that point exactly what, so we looked at a variety of places in the U.S.—all on the warm side—and found the whole Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex to be incredibly welcoming. There’s just a real can-do attitude in Texas that I’ve never experienced anywhere else.
Only a few months after you started the company,
your chocolates were shown on national TV in
the hands of Golden Globe nominees including
Edie Falco and Virginia Madsen. How did you
achieve that publicity coup?
The PR company that works with the Golden Globes found us online, and they loved our product. I was just beside myself—it seemed so unbelievable. At that time we were very small, and we barely caught it on TV because of all the things we had to do at work that day. We were like, “Oh my gosh, it’s going to be on!”, drove around and found a restaurant with a TV and switched to the channel. We just caught a little bit of it.
Why do you think luxury chocolate is so hot
right now?
I think that in general, people’s palates are becoming more sophisticated—people want to experience more from food products. People want to learn more, taste more, experience more, so I think this is really just supply meeting demand.
Some people might wonder if chocolatiers
choose their careers purely as an excuse to eat
chocolate every day. Is that true in your case?
I do taste chocolate every day, but really, I’m more of a
taster than an eater. That’s part of our philosophy, actually: wanting people to savor and appreciate chocolate as opposed to focusing on consumption. We want people to really enjoy the aroma, the texture, and the flavor of chocolate.
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